WORLD
Have Omicron cases hit peak? Data from South Africa, UK hints so
Gauteng , in South Africa, reported a 3.9 per cent decrease in the number of Omicron infections, compared to the previous week (377 cases per 100,000 persons). However, all other provinces reported an increase. Meanwhile, in the UK, Covid cases have plateaued for six days now, having hit a peak of more than 93,000 on Friday.
EU launches legal action against Poland over court rulings
The action is an escalation of a rule-of-law wrangle between Brussels and Warsaw over rulings made by Poland's top court, which this year found key elements of EU law to be incompatible with the country's constitution, Xinhua news agency reported. These rulings "expressly" challenged the primacy of EU law, the Commission said, adding that Poland now has two months to respond to the complaint.
Oxford-AstraZeneca begins work on vaccine to target Omicron
Early this month, all major drug makers including Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and AstraZeneca had announced plans to quickly investigate and adapt their shots to the highly mutated Omicron variant.
Blanket vaccine booster programs may prolong Covid-19 pandemic: WHO chief
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing that "diverting supply to countries already having high levels of vaccination coverage" will give the virus "more opportunity to spread and mutate", Xinhua news agency reported. WHO has previously called on countries to reach a target of vaccinating 40 percent of their populations by the end of the year, but only half of WHO member states have been able to make it, which has largely been a result of the global inequity of vaccine distribution, according to Tedros.
Chinese social media slams Intel for stance on Uyghur region
Analysts said that Intel's discriminative stance against Xinjiang, coming at a time when the US government intensified crackdown on Chinese technology companies, is a calibrated "cunning" move that aims to please the US government, while the move will only cause limited harm to its business, Global Times reported.
Biden says to run for president in 2024 if in good health
"Yes," he said when asked by host David Muir if he plans to run for reelection, in an interview aired Wednesday on ABC's World News Tonight, reported Xinhua news agency.
"But look, I'm a great respecter of fate. Fate has intervened in my life many, many times. If I'm in the health I'm in now, if I'm in good health, then in fact, I would run again," he said.
South Korea becomes 10th non-European country to join Europol
The National Police Agency (NPA) joined Europol by signing a working-level agreement that was approved unanimously by the 27 EU nations on October 6. The accession is an outcome of efforts by police to strengthen cooperation with Europe since 2017, Yonhap news agency quoted officials as saying.
Iran accuses West of 'fuelling tensions' in Gulf
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss met with visiting Foreign Ministers of the on Monday and they issued a joint statement after the meeting, voicing "grave concern" about Iran's regional activities and what they called "nuclear escalation", Xinhua news agency reported. Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh called the claims made through the statement "baseless" and "repetitive," according to a statement published on the ministry's website.
Moscow hopes for serious response to its security proposals: Russian FM
"We will do everything to make sure we are understood, considering the actions we are currently taking to ensure our defense capability, I hope that we will be taken seriously," Lavrov said during an interview for RT. Russia has recently sent a draft agreement to NATO and a draft treaty to the United States both on security guarantees in Europe for the Western countries to consider, Xinhua news agency reported.
Unvaccinated, Delta survivors have no protection against Omicron: Study
To measure antibody levels, researchers from the Medical University of Innsbruck, in Austria, compared the blood of those who had beaten Delta against Omicron, Daily Mail reported. Only one out of seven samples produced enough of the infection-fighting proteins to neutralise Omicron. "This essentially means the antibodies did not recognise Omicron as a threat due to its heavily mutated nature compared to the Delta variant," the researchers said.
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